


tender we fall (quiet & alone)

by schism



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Communication, Feelings Realization, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, Iceberg Lounge, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mental Instability, Multi, POV Third Person Limited, Slow Build, Unresolved Emotional Tension, basically this thing is a mess but it's my mess so, but a lot less than you'd expect, fluffy at the end, hallucination!Oswald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 00:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10730559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schism/pseuds/schism
Summary: After the incident at the docks, Ed puts his grand plan of destroying Oswald's legacy into action.That, however, proves to be more difficult than he initially anticipated.Set immediately after 3x14.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely AU from 3x14 onward, mostly because I started writing it two months ago and way before 3x15 came out and kicked me in the teeth (in a good way).  
> Also, I'm not a native English speaker so I apologize for any potential weirdness in sentence structure or wording or whatever. 
> 
> Title from "Basic Instinct" by The Acid.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Edward Nygma held his breath and watched as his best friend, his worst enemy, the man who claimed to ( _did?_ ) love him sank beneath the waves of Gotham Bay. He stood overlooking the water until the last trace of Oswald Cobblepot was gone, before turning away and breathing out. 

_What’s black and white and red all over?_

A dead penguin.

The first phase of his plan was complete. Everything had gone precisely as he’d wanted, and yet, a sense of _wrong_ was tarnishing his satisfaction. Oswald had to pay for what he’d done to Isabella. Ed was certain of that. Or so he told himself, wiping his fingerprints off the gun and depositing it into a plastic bag, ready to be discreetly disposed of at his leisure.

He’d thought he’d feel better after exacting his revenge and sure, for a tiny fraction of a moment, when Oswald was pleading and begging, he’d felt good. But after the fact, the prevailing emotion seemed to be… not sadness, exactly, but something akin to grief. After all, what was left now? There wasn’t a soul left alive that he cared about ( _and no one that cared about **him**_ , a part of his mind whispered), he had no job, no purpose at all other than destroying the last scraps of Oswald’s legacy and proving himself a force to be reckoned with in his own right – the first part of which would be easy, considering the man hadn’t had much time to leave behind anything truly meaningful anyway. The second part, though…

Ed had never desired to be the one in control of Gotham; power was an illusion that would make the holder a shiny target for those ambitious enough to take a shot. Oswald’s life – and recent death, by his own hand, no less – had proven as much. No, what Ed craved was reverence: to be admired, respected, and above all, to be feared. And not remembered as the lapdog of the (former) mayor, Ed’s name and self only an afterthought.

And while ruling the city was one of the ways to achieve the recognition he desired, it was by no means the only one. He thought back to his brief triumph over Jim Gordon and the failure that had followed. This time, he would up the ante, make sure that _he_ was the talk of Gotham, all eyes on him, the spotlight his and his alone. If he couldn’t have a normal, happy life, he’d settle for an infamous one.

He had no intention whatsoever of being stuck behind the wretched walls of Arkham ever again, so he’d need to be careful, calculating. The last game he’d played with the city and its people had ended badly for him because he’d panicked, been completely certain Gordon was onto him, even if in retrospect he was sure he could’ve gotten away with what he’d done had he not lost his cool and let his pride get the best of him. But then again, hindsight is always 20/20.

No, this time around, everything would be perfect. He owed himself ( _and Isabella_ , his mind added) ( _and Oswald_ , his heart suggested, which he pointedly ignored) and the city a spectacle unlike anything they’d seen before.

He wouldn’t hide behind a mask, though. As much as he’d liked the supervillains in cartoons as a child (as much as he’d gotten to watch them, that is, which wasn’t nowhere near as much as he would’ve liked), the idea of himself in a costume was… well. Ed was sure there were some people in Gotham who could pull off spandex or skintight bodysuits, but he didn’t think he was one of them. No, he needed something nice, something that would captivate the eye of the beholder – which would be the entire city, if he could have his way.

_Perhaps something green?_ Ed thought to himself, walking away from the docks without sparing a backward glance.

 

* * *

 

 

Getting into the Van Dahl manor was easy. Of course, given that Ed had the key, he would’ve been very surprised if it hadn’t been. Still, he made sure no one is in the house with him – even though there was no reason for anyone to be there. Olga wasn’t due back from her impromptu vacation anytime soon (which Ed had told her to take, on Oswald’s behalf – he’d needed her out of the way and she’d never liked him much; the old crone hadn’t suspected a thing). And Barbara Kean and her little friends had made sure what remained of Oswald’s goons still loyal to him were kept away – speaking of, those three would have to be dealt with at some point as well. If anything, they were a liability; he filed the thought away for consideration at some later time. They could wait. What he was doing now, however, could not.

Just as he’d expected, the house was empty. Ed made his way through the empty hallways, his steps echoing throughout the old house, creating a fascinating sound pattern that he took note of. He’d never been completely alone in the manor before, and he’d never noticed how dark it was, even with the morning light filtering through the windows to illuminate and simultaneously cast shadows along the walls.

Finding the portrait was easy enough. He knew where it was stashed, still waiting for the custom-order frame to be delivered so it could be displayed amongst the other portraits of Oswald’s paternal family. He took it to the living room and carefully avoiding looking too long at it, scrawled a glaring question mark on it.

As a symbol, question marks seemed unlike any other to him. They indicated a mystery, something to puzzle over. And another mayor of Gotham going missing in less than a year’s time would be a puzzle for the police indeed. It would take them some time to get around to checking the manor, of course, considering everything that needed cleaning up after the chaos that had gripped the city during the power outage, but they’d be here soon enough. In the meantime, Ed would focus his attentions elsewhere.

Turning his back to the portrait, he was startled by a faint movement in the corner of his eye. He knew he was alone in the house; he’d made sure of that. Perhaps it had just been a flutter of a curtain thanks to the slight draft in the house? But when he turned to look, there was nothing there.

Just a trick of the light, then.

As he passed through the hallways, his steps echoed through the house much like before. For some reason, though, Ed could’ve sworn he heard a steady _drip-drip-drip_ of water falling on the hardwood floor, but whenever he turned to glance over his shoulder, he saw nothing. Maybe it was just a distorted echo, or a figment of his imagination. Heavens knew his imagination was nothing if not vivid.

Still, he could’ve sworn something – _someone_? – was watching him from the shadows, always staying out of his line of sight, but never far enough that he’d feel at ease. But – he had to keep reminding himself, because it didn’t feel so – the manor was empty. Ed was by no means superstitious, but he made sure to lock the front door behind him as soon as he got out and walked to his car faster than he normally would’ve done.

_Though I wander the earth, I’m no longer here; mortals will shiver whenever I’m near._

A ghost.

He didn’t believe in ghosts, had said as much to Oswald – gullible, irrational Oswald who’d wept at the sight of his dead father speaking to him from beyond the grave. The thought made Ed sick to his stomach. Ghosts had no power over a rational mind, so why should’ve he been worried? There was no point in being afraid of something that didn’t exist.

 

* * *

 

 

Unfortunately, the uneasy feeling didn’t vanish after he left the Van Dahl manor.

Ed parked his car in front of his old apartment building and climbed up the stairs to the familiar door of his old home, now truly his own, discreetly purchased from his former landlord with probably far more money than it was worth just a few days before he got out of Arkham, courtesy of Oswald. Until Ed figured out somewhere else to stay, it would have to do.

Even after living there again for the past week or so, the place still seemed unfamiliar in some intangible way. The walls of the studio apartment had witnessed almost half of the formative events that had shaped Ed’s life in Gotham, and the place seemed saturated with memories just as much as it was with green light from the neon signs of the bar across the street.

It was all familiar, everything just the way he liked it, but something about the apartment seemed… off, somehow. The colors were a shade too dark or too light here and there, the shadows cast by the evening light too long, falling wrong, somehow. And then there was the noise of water dripping, again, just like back at the manor.

_Maybe it was coming from the sink?_ Finding it was completely dry, he thought, _must be coming from_ _the bathroom, then_ , and went to check. But the noise wasn’t coming from there, either. He bent over the sink to wash his face and calm himself down a bit; the situation was getting stranger by the minute, after an already stressful day.

Drying his face, Ed looked in the mirror. For a fraction of a second, he could’ve sworn there was someone standing behind him – not an occurrence unfamiliar to him, seeing as both his own and Kristen’s shade had reached out to him that way, but those times had been accompanied by a sense of certainty that if he would reach towards them, he’d feel flesh and bone. Which was impossible, he knew, but even the most rational of minds could get disordered when emotions were involved. He’d unfortunately proven that to himself more than once.

So, no, seeing something (some _one_?) other than himself in the mirror was nothing new, not even anything particularly frightening – startling, sure, but not scary. And yet… the combination of the phantom water and the barely-there physical manifestation of a shadowy _something_ was eerie in a whole new way. Ed been afraid of the things his mind had conjured up before, sure, but never like this. He didn’t believe in ghosts ( _ghosts aren’t **real**_ , his own disdainful words echoed from memory), supposed _evidence_ to their existence tended to be circumstantial at best and laughable at worst, but… a creeping doubt was starting to settle in. Maybe he was wrong? A rare occurrence, yes, but perhaps…

No.

No. This was nothing, just his tired mind playing tricks on him – the compounding effects of sleep deprivation and trauma prompting him to imagine things that weren’t there. That had to be it. Because to accept any alternative was laughable.

Later, when Ed was lying in his old bed and on the brink of finally falling asleep, he could’ve sworn he heard a familiar, bittersweet tune –

_he’d learned the song quicker than any other one before, eager to try and get the man whose life he’d saved back to his old self as fast as possible, an urgent desire in his mind and in his heart to finally level with someone who **understood** , feeling almost giddy, oh how he’d wanted to impress, to help, to prove himself someone worthy of attention, to have someone finally **see him** as he was, who he could become_

_–_ dimly echoing, as if someone was humming it nearby, accompanied by a faint whiff of briny air.

He pointedly ignored it.

 

* * *

 

 

Ed woke up the next morning after a deep, dreamless sleep to the sound of water dripping. He checked the pipes, the taps, everything, but nothing was leaking. A quick glance out the window revealed the sun shining in the almost-clear sky above Gotham City (he’d become so used to the permanent cloud cover that sunlight felt almost unnatural), so he couldn’t blame the noise on rain, either. What’s more, the sharp smell of brine had become stronger, now with an additional undercurrent of oil, rust, and other pollutants that routinely ended up in the waters of Gotham Bay, despite any regulations that the city officials managed to push through.

He wasn’t frightened, though. If anything, he was beginning to feel increasingly annoyed with every passing minute. The sound of the water was irritating and the stench of brine made him feel nauseous. And it was largely because of this that he failed to immediately notice the shadowy figure next to his bed. Once Ed’s eyes registered it – _him_ –, however, he fell back, panting. A hollow-eyed phantom of Oswald stood there, watching him. His hair was matted to his head, tear-tracks down his pale cheeks, his clothes dripping with filthy river water ( _so_ that _was what the noise had been_ , a part of Ed’s mind commented) and his shirt was stained with mud, darkened by blood on his stomach, a tangle of seaweed stuck to the shoulder of his torn jacket. He looked gaunt, almost blurry around the edges, as if he was barely being held together by the shadows surrounding him.

The air temperature in the room seemed to drop the moment Ed noticed the apparition. He tried to speak, but no words would come out, so they stood there, staring at each other, Ed with wide-eyed fright and Oswald-but-not-exactly with detached curiosity. He didn’t seem in a hurry to speak to Ed, either. An eternity seemed to pass within the span of a few seconds, and when Ed blinked, the shade was gone. His hands were shaking and the metallic scent of blood and salt hung heavy in the air. The moment he calmed down enough to pick up his keys, Ed left the apartment.

He had planning to do, was the thing. And he would not, could not, let himself be distracted by some… some _hallucination_. That’s what it was. A part of him felt guilty for killing Oswald, that much he could admit. They had been close friends, after all. But there was work to be done, and if he’d managed to keep up appearances when he was still working at the GCPD while being taunted and antagonized by a phantom image of himself, he was very much capable of getting things done with a phantasm of Oswald simply staring at him. Probably.

He’d be better prepared the next time – if there would be one.

 

And he was better prepared in the sense that he didn’t almost have a heart attack. He was _not_ prepared, however, for the crying. His earlier experiences of hallucinations (because that’s what… _it_ had to be, another one of the crooked creations of Ed’s mind) had acted mocking, dismissive towards him. This one…

This one wept, silently, broken and faint whispers of _I did it_ _because I love you_ and _Ed_ and _please don’t do this_ in a mockery of Oswald’s voice accompanying the tears every now and then, even though the apparition itself did not seem to open its mouth. What’s more, _it_ (Ed refused to think of it as _Oswald_ , because it wasn’t; Oswald was dead and lying at the bottom of the docks – _at least for another week, if not more, considering the water temperature and the depth of the water, before decomposition sets in enough to bring his corpse floating back to the surface_ ) limped soundlessly after him around town as Ed attended to his errands and as he went over the plans of the buildings he’d need access to for the second phase of his plan.

Managing to keep his focus on the task at hand was a completely different matter, though. It wasn’t so much the occasional whispers, or the crying, or the shade itself that unnerved Ed; it was the compounded effect of all three that sent shivers down his spine and made ignoring his – _its_ – presence nigh impossible, although Ed was careful to not look at _it_ for too long. And _it_ didn’t stop, didn’t vanish again like back at the apartment.

But then, after the onset of a massive headache its presence had caused in Ed, _it_ stopped crying. Something about _it_ shifted, the waves of sorrow radiating off the apparition (because _it_ was not a ghost, couldn’t be, ghosts didn’t exist, _it_ was just a product of Ed’s traumatized mind, his brain’s way of dealing with an unthinkable situation) turning to… not anger, exactly, but wordless contempt. Which was, oddly enough, a lot easier to bear than the crying.

“Just tell me what you want from me,” Ed said bluntly, facing the apparition.

“Hello to you, too, _old_ _friend_ ,” it replied in a voice that was nearly Oswald’s, its shadowed eyes revealing not even a hint of emotion. Then again, how could they? He – _it_ , it, **it** – wasn’t real, couldn’t have feelings–

Ed gritted his teeth. “What do you want?” he asked again, louder this time.

It laughed without humor, a harsh and off-kilter mockery of the real Oswald’s laugh. “What do you _think_ I want?”

“Considering you’re a figment of my imagination, I should know, shouldn’t I? But, I must admit, I have no idea. That’s why I’m asking.”

 “A figment of your…” not-Oswald trailed off, a ghost of a grin forming at the corners of his mouth.

Ed scowled. “Haven’t you done enough damage? Leave me alone. You’re dead and gone, you have no reason left to torment me now.”

“I have every reason to torment you. You’re the one that killed me, remember?” _It_ laughed without a shred of warmth in its voice and vanished, leaving behind a furious Ed.

 

* * *

 

 

For a while, _it_ didn’t show up again. That wasn’t worrisome, more of an improvement. The problem, however, that Ed couldn’t stop thinking about it – its empty eyes, the water dripping off it and not leaving any marks (Ed wouldn’t use the sinks or the shower more than necessary – the sound of the water dripping was enough to set his heart racing in trepidation), the voice that was both painfully Oswald’s and painfully not.

Every minute Ed spent awake was filled with dread; he wasn’t sure what to expect of it if… _when_ (because it seemed to be a matter of time, not of probability) it would show up again. Would it weep silently or would it speak to him again, or do something else entirely? He didn’t know, and the possibilities seemed endless. The others had behaved just one way, had been predictable in how they expressed what they thought of him (what he sometimes thought of himself, if he was honest, because that’s what they were), but this one was not. The thought of that alone was agonizing.

Ed loved preparation. He loved to take the methodical, calculated approaches to situations and people, figuring out possible outcomes of any given scenario beforehand and adjusting his behavior accordingly. In life, Oswald had been one of the few people capable of surprising him. It seemed that that remained the case even in death, even if it was just Ed’s memory of Oswald as he’d last seen the man voicing his guilty conscience. Because that’s all it was. Deep down, Ed had his regrets for killing Oswald and his brain was trying to reconcile the difference of opinion between his rational and irrational mind.

He said as much to the apparition when it showed up again.

“You feel bad? _You_ feel bad? I’m the one that’s dead,” it told him, a wolfish grin on its lips.

Ed looked at it. It was still wearing the same clothes, the same piece of seaweed on its shoulder. But the look in its eyes was… different, somehow. Instead of the flat, glazed stare he’d expected to see, he saw amusement.

“But then again, I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” it continued. “I’m in the past, never in the future, I don’t exist but have existed, I saw what you saw and it’s all I’ll ever see. What am I?”

“A memory,” Ed replied automatically.

“And an unfortunate one, it seems. Look at my clothes. Is this how you remember me being? Couldn’t you have imagined me wearing something nicer? You could’ve at least given me a scarf or something; I’ll catch a cold. Oh, wait – I forgot! I can’t do that, because I’m _dead_. Thank you for that, by the way. Thanks for killing me in these horrid clothes. Now I’ll have to wear them until you die.”

“What do you mean, until I die?”

“I have no intention of going anywhere, _old_ _friend_. And seeing as I don’t seem to be able to move much further from you than your line of sight, leaving doesn’t seem to be an option in any case,” it said, frowning at Ed. “Although to be honest with you, it seems fitting, considering you’re the last thing I saw before I died, so fair’s fair.”

Ed leaned against the kitchen counter. “So what am I supposed to do about you?”

“Can you bring me back to life? And I mean better than what I am now, because this is a terrible way to exist. I’m stuck with you and while at one point that may have been something desirable, that’s not the case anymore. Or you could just let me go.”

“Let you go?”

“Stop thinking about me. But you can’t do that, can you? Whether you like it or not, I’m right here. Has that wonderful mind of yours reached the conclusion that what you did to me was wrong? I loved you, and you killed me,” it told him flatly. “Has it finally registered that maybe you overreacted, just as I may have?”

“You had Isabella killed. I had every right...” Ed started, but Oswald – it, not-Oswald, it – stopped him with a choked laugh.

“Every right? I did you a favor by getting rid of her myself. You would’ve killed her, she was practically asking you to, what with the appearance overhaul and everything to look even more like the other one. And she looked _exactly_ the same as her, didn’t she?” it said, narrowing its eyes at him. “Not reminiscent of her, but _exactly the same_ as her _._ And she was everything you’d ever wanted in a woman, wasn’t she? Exactly like the first one, only _she_ liked your riddles, was awed by everything about you, gave you her full attention, said she wanted to love you forever. Didn’t it seem even a little bit suspicious to you, that ‘all give and no take’ attitude?”

It had. Ed had just chalked it up to anxiety at first, but Isabella had been… well, Kristen, except better (if he’d ever imagined such a thing to be possible). She hadn’t tried to run from him, had accepted him, was beautiful and smart and _there_. And he’d accepted the small ray of hope the universe had extended to him without asking questions. Then, Oswald destroyed her because he thought her undeserving, because he was jealous.

“She was a second chance for me and you ruined everything. Of course I had to do something,” Ed said after a minute.

“You _had_ to kill me just as much as I _had_ to kill her. And let’s be honest here, everything was already ruined the moment she showed up. I was going to tell you something big the same day, don’t you remember?”

The beginning of that day was a blur, everything before Isabella seeming muddled and gray, just another day in his life, insignificant and not particularly worthy of remembering to minute detail. Ed had a good memory that he prided himself on, yes, but meeting Isabella overshadowed everything that had preceded it that day.

“We went to visit that school,” Ed recalled, “and you’d acted peculiarly all morning. I didn’t think much of it, I thought you were just nervous about the day ahead.”

“I asked you to have dinner with me and you didn’t show up. Do you know how _that_ felt? I obviously wanted to tell you something big, and you left me to wait for you without a word. _The first of a thousand cuts_ , wasn’t it?” it said, resentment clouding its voice. “And you didn’t even know. But I forgave you for that, didn’t I? I forgave you for disturbing my poor dead father’s rest, I forgave you for trying to kill me, I was ready to die for you in a heartbeat. And you killed me anyway. And for what? A woman you’d known for a week, if that, a pipe dream too good to be true, which you would’ve noticed immediately if you weren’t so blinded by her being _pretty and_ _nice to you_.”

Ed didn’t say anything. As much as he hated to admit it, not-Oswald had touched a nerve. Isabella had been like a mayfly, briefly there and gone too soon. And he’d killed his best friend in her name. What had he even known about her? Had he known her at all? He liked to think he had, but doubt was slowly setting in. What if he’d been wrong about her?

No.

No. There was no evidence of any foul play involved. He couldn’t make himself believe she was anything other than what she’d shown him. Because the implications of that would mean…

Ed closed his eyes. The water dripping off not-Oswald’s clothes made a rhythmic echo on the floor and the smell of brine had gotten stronger again. “I’d like you to leave, please,” he said quietly.

“What, did you finally realize that you may or may not have murdered me over the loss of an opportunity that very likely wasn’t even real to begin with? Oh, now _that_ is rich indeed,” it laughed again and was gone once more, melted into the shadows it had emerged from.

 

* * *

 

 

Ed didn’t see the apparition again for a few days, allowing him to set his plans into motion. Then, he received a phone call from the GCPD, asking if he knew the mayor’s whereabouts.

“I haven’t seen him in weeks,” Ed lied with ease, allowing a simulation of worry into his voice. “I took some personal time off after a close friend died. Has something happened to Oswald?”

“We don’t know yet. Nobody has seen him in a couple of days and what with happened to the last mayor, we’re treating this case with extra attention, as is expected by the public. Can you come to the precinct to answer a couple of questions?”

Ed had no choice but to agree.

 

The interview was predictable, routine questions for a missing persons case replied to with answers Ed had prepared long before he’d put the bullet in Oswald’s stomach and pushed him off the docks. _No, I haven’t seen him since the literature award ceremony._ _No, I can’t think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt him – well, I can think of a few people, but none of them with actual means to go through with attempting anything. No, I don’t know who might have seen him last._

The only highlight was the frustration on Gordon and Bullock’s faces when they didn’t get anything from him.

“I thought you two were close, Nygma. Didn’t he save your life after Gilzean tried to strangle you at the victory party?” Bullock said, leaning against the wall and staring at a file he was holding in front of him. Obviously intended to make Ed nervous, to make it seem like they had evidence that would implicate him.

Ed wanted to laugh.

“Answer the question,” Gordon said from across the table when Ed didn’t reply soon enough for his liking.

_He saved my life more than just that once_ , a traitorous part of Ed’s mind whispered while not-Oswald stared accusingly at him from the opposite corner of the room.

“Yes, he did, but as I said before, I took some time off after someone close to me was killed in a car accident,” Ed said instead.

“But he didn’t try to contact you? You didn’t want to talk to him?” Gordon pried.

“He tried to call me a few times but I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I needed time away from everything to process what happened.”

And he would’ve managed to do that, had it not been for Barbara Kean whispering stories into his ear. He’d known she was trying to turn him against Oswald the moment he saw her at the house, waiting for him, but not once had he suspected she might have been telling the truth. Until he saw for himself.

“We found the painting, Ed,” Bullock said, waving the file at him.

Shaken out of his thoughts, Ed’s confusion must’ve been more apparent than he thought, because Gordon sighed and said, “The portrait of the two of you with the green question mark scrawled on it, set up in the middle of the drawing room in the Van Dahl manor. It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve used that symbol before.”

Not-Oswald was laughing at him from across the room, then moving closer and closer until Gordon should’ve felt its breath on his hair. It didn’t have breath, Ed had to remind himself, and neither Gordon nor Bullock could see it.

“Done before you even got started. _Oh Eddie, whatever are we going to do?_ ” it told Ed, baring its teeth. Ed closed his hands into fists, tightly enough that he could feel the tips of his fingernails digging into his palms. It helped ground him a little, and most importantly, keep him focused. 

“I haven’t been to the manor in weeks. I’ve got plenty of enemies and the symbol isn’t exactly a secret, or anything unusual. Maybe someone is trying to frame me for Oswald’s disappearance.”

Gordon looked unimpressed. “Can you think of anyone who might be holding a grudge against either of you, then?”

“We all know Butch Gilzean never liked me much, and he and Oswald didn’t part on good terms, either, so he might’ve had something to do with it.” Ed knew he had to proceed carefully. Butch was the most obvious choice to throw under the nose of the GCPD but if they managed to find him and bring him in, or Tabitha, for that matter, Ed was finished. He might’ve had a tentative agreement with Barbara, but neither of her lackeys were particularly fond of him.

“Or it could be Fish Mooney, she’s still alive and on the run, isn’t she?”

“Humor me. Let’s say it _was_ Fish. What reason would she have to frame you? Did _you_ ever actually meet her in person?” Bullock said, narrowing his eyes. Ed vaguely remembered there being a connection between the two, but Bullock was good enough that Ed never managed to – more like bothered to, if he was being honest – find out much. Which he was beginning to regret.

So, Ed shrugged. “Haven’t had the pleasure, but I know enough about her to know she’s smart, resourceful, and most of all, ambitious. And she has history with Oswald. She knows him and how to get to him. If she takes his right-hand man down too, her victory is all but guaranteed, isn’t it? The power vacuum that taking out someone as significant as the Penguin would create would need to be filled, and I’m sure she’d be glad to step in. Then again, so would Falcone, or any of the other families. There’s plenty of people who would rush at the chance to see harm come to Oswald.”

Gordon narrowed his eyes. “You’re hiding something. I don’t know what, but you know something more than what you’re telling us.”

“Are you going to arrest me? Because if not then I think it’s time for me to leave,” Ed said, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice. Gordon was smarter than he wanted to admit, and Ed could not repeat the mistakes of the past. The man seemed to be almost invincible, bouncing back even from the most impossible situations. Then again, that seemed to be a common denominator for most of the major players in Gotham.

“We both know I don’t have grounds to arrest you right now. But if anything turns up…” Gordon trailed off, raising his eyebrows.

“I can assure you that nothing will. I don’t know anything other than what I can speculate, knowing what I know about Oswald and his enemies.” With that, he rose to leave.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on you, Nygma,” Bullock shouted as Ed left the room, not-Oswald following close behind, laughing.

_I wouldn’t expect anything less_ , Ed thought as he navigated through the familiar bullpen towards the exit and fought the urge to snap at the apparition to shut up.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, surprise, look who's alive!

As much as Ed hated to admit it, seeing not-Oswald was... nice. He refused to acknowledge he missed the man, but… he could admit he missed the company. Which was unfortunate, because without Ed even noticing, most of his attention and time after his release from Arkham had centered on Oswald, one way or another, which made being alone again strange, to say the least.

Funny, that. Way before everything, when he was still Ed Nygma, the weird forensics guy, and not Ed Nygma, the chief of staff to the mayor and most importantly, Ed Nygma, the criminal, he’d been used to spending most of his days by himself, so he should’ve felt at least comfortable if not content in solitude when he finally had it again, right? Instead, he just felt lonely.

There was no one left in the world that needed him, not a friend – however terrible, however traitorous – left for him in the world. Everything had changed so much in the past few years and at the same time, nothing had changed at all. Ed was still alone, as usual, a different man but at the same time just the same as he’d ever been.

However, it didn’t do well to dwell on these kinds of things mere minutes before his grand re-entrance into the criminal world of Gotham. To hold his position, he’d had to seem as hands-off as possible, running the legitimate side of things and avoiding being seen around the more… questionable assets and employees as much as he could, just in case things went sour and he’d need to claim plausible deniability. It didn’t mean, of course, that he was unaware of the unsavory side of things, quite the opposite, it simply meant there was next to no evidence linking him to any of it.

 _It might not be too late to turn back_ , a part of him thought. He didn’t need to make a splash, he could just… leave Gotham and set up somewhere else. Considering he wasn’t currently in police custody or likely to be so any time soon, getting out was a tempting thought, but truth be told, he had nowhere else to go. At least he’d been happy here, however briefly. The city was brutal and cold and covered in a haze of pollution, but it was his home, the only place he’d ever dared to call such a thing. Always had been.

And the thing was, it wasn’t just the city itself with its soot-coated streets and the constant wailing of sirens and the liveliness that he admired, it was the people in it, too. The natives of Gotham were much like the city itself, enduring in the face of nigh-impossible odds, some even managing to thrive, to set themselves apart from the rabble and rise above whatever misery they’d been born into. Some succeeded, a lucky few even managed to leave the city behind to hunt for greener pastures. But most could not. It wasn’t even a question of means, it was a question of a twisted sense of loyalty. The city took a lot and gave back little, but no matter how dangerous or scary it could be, it was home.

To Ed, Gotham was a riddle that he’d desperately wanted to solve, but after almost thirty years of residence it occurred to him that maybe there was no answer. Maybe the city had become what it was by some sort of collective energy emanating from its people, maybe it was something in the water, something in the chemically clouded skies. Whatever it was, there was no other place like it. And he was going to leave his mark on the city, no matter what it took – he had to prove he wasn’t just a pawn in the machinations of people who imagined themselves kings and queens.

Which is exactly why the first stage of the second phase of his grand plan involved cornering people that had worked for Oswald – a waitress from a bar that paid protection money every other Wednesday like clockwork, a fence working out of an abandoned factory in the Narrows, a new political aide that had started in after Ed’s leave of absence had already started, a goon for one of the families loyal to the Penguin that imagined himself a tough guy, and one of the workers that had been contracted to work on the development in Diamond District that they’d signed off on a few months ago. Snatching them off the streets was ridiculously easy, tying them up and transporting them wherever he wanted them to be found was easier.

Whether each of them lived or died was their own doing – Ed just asked them a riddle each, and if they gave him the correct answer, he instructed them to tell the police, once they woke up, that they were delivering a message. But if they did not get the answer right… well, corpses made for excellent messengers, too. In any case, he made sure they knew his new name, the moniker he’d chosen for himself after long consideration; his first halfway decent idea had been “Enigma”, right before he remembered he was reinventing himself, so he might as well reinvent his name properly. A few hours and several disparaging comments from not-Oswald later, he’d finally settled on something short and memorable, and most of all distinct enough that it would catch attention: the Riddler.  

After he was done with the last of his hostages – the waitress had been smart enough to answer correctly, once she’d managed to stop hysterically crying, and had thus earned the right to live another day, one of the lucky two that had survived his test –, as if by summons, not-Oswald decided to make an appearance. The scent of brine and rust clouded the air around Ed and when he turned to look, already knowing what to expect, the apparition was standing next to him in the filthy alleyway, looking same as ever.

“Still no chance for better clothes for me, I see,” not-Oswald said, frowning at his ruined suit. “Honestly, the tar-and-feather-covered one would be better at this point.”

Ed fought the desire to smile. It still wasn’t exactly pleasant, seeing this facsimile of the man he’d killed, but…

Having a figment of his imagination to speak with was safer than trusting in anyone else. After all, if you couldn’t trust yourself to keep your own secrets…

“You’ve been gone for a while,” he said instead, quietly so no one would hear him talking seemingly to thin air. He set walking towards where he’d parked his car, careful to remain as inconspicuous as possible. “I thought maybe you’d decided to listen to me for once and leave me alone after I told you to.”

“Yeah, that… Did you honestly think you’d get rid of me that easily?” not-Oswald asked, his lips twisted into something resembling a grin.

“I suppose not,” Ed replied, with a half-hearted shrug. The rush from the completion of the first phase of his plan was already fading, mere minutes after the fact, a bone-deep weariness settling in in its place.

“That’s what I thought. I’m stuck way deep inside your head, Eddie. You couldn’t let me go even if you tried.”

Ed scoffed.

Not-Oswald narrowed its eyes at him. “You’re welcome to try. What was that all about in there, though? You trying to prove something?”

“In a way,” Ed replied.

“What, that you’re good enough to rule Gotham without me?” not-Oswald asked. It was funny how, even though he was a good few inches shorter than Ed, he managed to glower unlike anyone else. To many, the sheer amount of rage and violence contained in someone so small was intimidating and unsettling. To Ed, it had been charming, once upon a time.

“Why should I care for the power struggles in the city?” Ed asked the apparition, careful to keep his voice down. They – _he_ , Ed was alone – were still on the street and in Gotham, every street had someone listening. Best not to draw too much attention to himself, for now. The green suit that he’d chosen was memorable enough by itself.

When the apparition didn’t reply, he added, “I never wanted it for myself.”

Not-Oswald stared at him silently for a minute. “Honestly, I don’t think you know what you wanted or what you want,” it eventually said, and when Ed turned to hiss that he knew perfectly well what he wanted, both then and now, _thanks_ , it had already vanished.

 

* * *

 

 

And then, there was a miracle. It was just Ed’s luck, at this point. No matter how well he crafted a given plan, even if everything went his way, there was always _something_. And this time, the _something_ had crawled out of a watery grave, alive and well as ever.

He’d heard the first whispers of the Penguin being seen alive, walking in broad daylight about a week or so after the incident at the docks. But he hadn’t taken them seriously – more than half of Gotham was up in arms looking for their mayor, even despite the controversial live interview. The rumors were something Ed had considered before even starting to come up with the plan of destroying Oswald. 

What he hadn’t considered, however, was how Gotham looked after her own. And Oswald was one of her own, born and raised in the city, and theirs was a mutual love. The city had spared him time over time before, so why wouldn’t it now? So, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the rumors started. It shouldn’t even have come as a surprise when they turned out to be true – good news in the sense that Ed’s mind was at ease for a moment – Oswald wasn’t gone forever after all. Then, the realization struck: Oswald wasn’t gone after all, which meant he was alive and more than likely out for blood. Specifically, Ed’s.

The Penguin wasn’t a forgiving man, that much Ed had known long before they met in person the first time, and he preferred to serve his brand of justice slowly, savoring it. One of the reasons Ed had admired him so, what seemed an eternity ago. So, knowing Oswald, he would be… _angry_ or _livid_ were not words strong enough. He was probably furious, and Ed felt a cold shiver down his spine, knowing that all of Oswald’s rage would be directed towards him soon enough.

So, he put his plans on hold for a moment. The second act was ready and set to go, anyway, without needing him to be there when the GCPD finally fumbled to it – a bomb set in one of Old Gotham’s abandoned lighthouses, good luck to the police for figuring out which one in time and so on. Whether the explosion happened or not, the lighthouse itself served as the next clue for the grand finale, as well as a blow to the Penguin’s criminal empire, since it was one of Oswald’s biggest stash houses.

As the stage for his first grand finale, Ed had chosen the Diamond District, the glitziest and nicest part of the grimy city, for obvious reasons: Oswald’s real estate development was there, which had forced his hand to some extent, but it wasn’t a necessity that he was unhappy with, either. It would do nicely for what he had planned.

And he was in no hurry. He hadn’t been identified by anyone just yet, either because he’d made sure the survivors understood he knew precisely where they lived and who their families were and let their imaginations run wild from there, or because of the neat little neurotoxin he’d slipped into the sedatives he’d shot them with once he was done which would (if his calculations were right, which they were) prevent them from remembering him for long enough that he’d be able to move freely through the city until his show was concluded.

He’d finished with the hostages on Monday, the bomb in the lighthouse was set to go off on Wednesday, and by Tuesday he hadn’t been caught yet; all in all, it seemed everything was going his way. And then the news hit.

It was plastered all over the newsstands, on every local news show, headlines screaming _MISSING MAYOR FINALLY FOUND_. Ed found it hard to join the revelries. This was supposed to be _his_ moment, _his_ time in the limelight, and once again it was taken from him, snatched before he could even enjoy it properly, the article about his victims pushed to the side. He should’ve expected it by now, of course, but it still stung.

Not-Oswald was overjoyed, unsurprisingly.

“You do realize he’s coming after you now, right? It’s what I would do – but what do I know? I’m in your head, which only proves that _you_ are obsessed with him. Maybe he’s over you,” it told him smugly. Ed wanted to throttle it. But, as irritating as it was, not-Oswald was right.

What sold Ed on the idea was how his informants kept quietly disappearing. And since there were two people in the world who knew who they were, where they were, and how to contact them, the number of prospective suspects, discounting Ed himself, was one. Which meant Oswald had indeed survived, somehow, or been brought back – the how wasn’t as important as the fact that he was back. Which posed a problem.

Ed was already having trouble with keeping himself up-to-date with the happenings in the city after losing four of his people. If the ones in the GCPD – who’d remained untouched so far, for whatever reason – were disposed of as well, he would be left blind. And that would simply not do. Creating the information network had been plenty of trouble, even with the influence of the mayor on his side; recreating it would be a nightmare. But he could do it. Probably.

Unless…

Unless word spread that people working for him were being hunted down. Now that would put a dent in his plans.

See, therein lay the problem. If Oswald truly was alive, there would be nowhere to hide. Since Ed hadn’t considered the possibility of the betrayal he’d suffered, he’d been far too open and honest about his personal resources, which meant Oswald knew his hideouts, his accomplices, could predict how he thought and acted. Which was bad enough, but what was even more unhelpful was the persistence with which not-Oswald remained glued to his side. By then, the apparition was there most of the time Ed was awake, disappearing every now and then only to pop up unexpectedly, like it was trying to scare him. Which was ridiculous.

And what little sleep Ed managed to get was plagued by memories of the real Oswald and/or grim imaginings of the potential future in which retaliation wasn’t a hypothetical possibility but a certain reality. Then again, not-Oswald was a delight compared to the nightmarish shades that haunted his dreams, their eyes filled with hatred and mouths twisting the words Oswald had said from a plea to a curse, only to turn and say them again, softly like an apology.

Because hatred was what Ed knew best. He knew how it could swallow a person whole, leave every breath a shaky gasp in fear of what would come next. His childhood was proof of that. But he wasn’t afraid of anger, not after embracing it, accepting it, welcoming it into his life like an old friend.

If anything, he found love far more frightening because he couldn’t predict it. Because it had taken him by surprise each time, the complexity of the impulses and thoughts running through him, setting his nerve endings aflame, leaving his heart fluttering in his chest.

Because he’d seen Oswald’s anger in action before, and never been scared. But he’d never seen Oswald in love before... Before everything.

Oswald had thrown the map into the fire, Ed had burned every bridge that could’ve saved them, and it was time to face the consequences.

Or… Ed _could_ run.

But what use would running be if the shadows and the memories hounded him wherever he went?

No, he’d have to complete his plan, destroy the last remaining piece of Oswald’s legacy in the city and cement himself as the man that had bested the Penguin. That was what he had to do, even if part of him wanted to get back in bed and never leave again, to lie down and surrender to whatever was to come.

Besides, he’d already gotten this far. Might as well see it through.

Instead of the giddiness he usually experienced when he was getting his way, there was… nothing.

“Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for yourself again,” not-Oswald said, narrowing its eyes at him. “You’re boring when you’re moping.”

Ed wasn’t even surprised at its sudden appearance. It had become almost expected, this far along.

“You know that even if you manage to destroy the building, he can and will rebuild,” it told him, almost conversationally. “After all, this all would’ve worked out much better if you’d actually managed to kill him. But you couldn’t even manage _that_ , so here we are – you, fumbling with the last details of a plan already doomed, and me, _both_ of me, all excited to give you hell.”

Ed ignored the apparition. Trying to reason with it was pointless, since it never listened anyway, and, after all, what was there to say? This was just some… some figment of his imagination, hell-bent on annoying him to death, apparently. He knew what he was doing, and he wasn’t going to be stopped by… _himself?_

He wasn’t going to be stopped, was the point. No matter how reasonable not-Oswald’s arguments happened to be.

“I have to do this,” he said simply. “You know that. You’re in my head, how could you not?”

Not-Oswald scoffed. “Right, you _have to_ do this just like you _had to_ kill the other me.”

Had it been the right thing to do? Probably not, no. Had it felt good? For a moment, yes, but… his emotions were a tangle he couldn’t quite figure out. So, Ed closed his eyes and focused on breathing. _In, out, in, out_ … After a while, he opened his eyes again.

“I… I don’t hate you,” he told the apparition reluctantly. “Either of you. I didn’t do it – _try_ to do it – because I _wanted_ to, okay? I owed _her_ , that’s all. She deserved reprisal.”

“I know,” not-Oswald replied. “I wonder if _he_ does, though.”

Nothing was to be said after that.

 

* * *

 

 

Whichever way Ed had imagined facing the still-living version of Oswald again, whatever he thought he’d say or do once he knew he had failed in the most crucial part of his plan, the reality of their first meeting after three weeks turned out to be completely different.

Because seeing him, standing there…

Alive, as whole as he’d ever been…

It took Ed’s breath away. Not even in a figurative sense; much more like an actual panic attack. But not quite? He didn’t know exactly – there was a lump in his throat and his eyes were watering and above all, he wanted to laugh.

Laugh at this ridiculous situation they’d found themselves in.

_I killed him, and he’s standing right there, staring back at me. Only this time, it’s not just my imagination._

Oswald looked good. Far better than not-Oswald or the nightmare one, although not quite the same as he had before. Still, he stood tall, without a cane, his gaze defiant as if daring Ed to attempt anything. Which would be suicide, of that much Ed was sure.

But the thing was… he didn’t _want_ to do anything. The time for harm was past. The building in the Diamond District gutted, the past wiped away once more, a clean canvas to rebuild. This was…

With a start, Ed realized this was a second chance.

Isabella hadn’t been it, not really. He’d barely even thought of her after Oswald’s – death was the wrong word, he wasn’t dead, after all – incident. He’d loved the idea of her, was the thing. She wasn’t Kristen reborn, and she wasn’t a better version of her, no matter how much she might have looked like her. No, she was her own person, and Ed hadn’t known much about her at all, hadn’t even known how to grieve for her properly. What he’d had with her, it was nothing like this. Nothing like whatever it was he had here, with the man standing fifteen feet away under the roof of a run-down warehouse in the Narrows.

This was it. This was the real second chance. There was a long way to go, of course, he’d have to make things right, but… he could do it. He didn’t believe in God, but he believed in _something_ enough to not throw away… whatever this was. Oswald was back for a reason. And there would be time to figure everything out and make amends, if possible. Unless Oswald managed to kill him first, of course. Which seemed more and more likely by the second, considering the look on his face.

They stood, regarding each other, looking at how kind or unkind the past three weeks had been to the other.

“I see you’ve taken to wearing a hat,” Oswald said eventually, glancing at the green bowler hat as if it had offended his mother’s memory, then taking in the outfit Ed was wearing. “You look… green.”

His voice was what broke through Ed’s remaining defenses once and for all. The apparitions his mind had conjured up sounded nothing like this – they were flat, empty echoes of the real thing, of its capacity to have layers and layers of meaning that remained hidden until one learned to listen for them, of the way it could fill a room and command one’s attention like nothing else. Ed had missed it, realized he’d missed everything about Oswald.

The shadows in the corners of the worn-down warehouse seemed lighter, somehow, than they had been before.

He wanted to laugh.

He wanted to scream.

He had no idea what he wanted.

Looking at Oswald, Ed bit back a smile. He was here – not a shade or a figment of Ed’s imagination, but flesh and blood. He was real, and the same as ever, capable of being infuriating and delightful at once in a way unlike anyone else.

“And you’ve taken to offing my informants,” Ed said, instead of sharing what was running through his mind.

“Why, what makes you say that,” Oswald said, his tone carefully even despite his small, hesitant smile.

“No one else knew who they were,” Ed said simply. “To be honest, I don’t even mind. I destroyed the lounge. Fair’s far, and all that.”

“So it _was_ you. I was wondering about that, what with the Riddler thing and all,” Oswald replied. “Then again, it makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it. You did always like riddles, and you’re terrible at speaking your mind outright. Of course it _would_ be you.”

Everything unsaid hung in the air between them, neither willing to broach the subject.

“You can rebuild the lounge, if you want. I know you still have the means,” Ed told him. “I’ll even help, if you’ll let me.”

Oswald regarded him for a minute or so. Ed tried to smile in encouragement, but his mouth didn’t obey his wishes, turning into a wobbly, watery excuse of a grin.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” Oswald said eventually. “And I don’t think you can trust me, either. We’ve done enough damage as it is.”

Ed took a step closer. “Look, I… It’s great to see you. I’ve missed you and–”

“Stop. Please, just… _don’t_ , okay?” Oswald interrupted, lifting his hand, “You made yourself perfectly clear that day at the docks and honestly, I’m… not exactly fine with it, but... I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to talk about the future.”

“Are you going to…”

“Kill you? No, Ed. Aside from how much I considered it in the first week… no, I don’t want you dead, as pathetic as that is. I’m here to warn you,” Oswald told him, looking right into his eyes for the first time in the ten or so minutes they’d been there.

“Gordon and the cops are closing in on you. This was supposed to be a trap; I was supposed to stall and give them twenty minutes to gather their forces and come after you. They consider you armed and extremely dangerous, you know, for whatever reason.” Oswald laughed, more of a huff of air than anything real, but Ed would take what he could get.

“But, see, the thing is, I’m not going to do it for them, not without your knowledge – you can stay or you can go, choose for yourself. You’ve still got a few minutes to get out, if you want.”

Ed thought about it for a moment. “What happens to you if I go?”

Oswald frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m guessing they have something on you if they got you to agree to doing this. Or…” Ed trailed off, remembering they weren’t friends anymore. It was kind of funny, in a way, how easy it was to forget everything that had happened between them in the past months, now that there had been time and distance to clear his head. He hadn’t forgotten the bad parts, by no means, but he’d remembered the good. And, unfortunately, the good far outweighed the bad.

“I… I _chose_ to cooperate with them, okay?” Oswald said quietly. “Just as I chose not to go through with it in the end. Make of that what you will.”

Ed tried to smile. “I think I’ll stay right here, then. Let’s put on a bit of a show for dear old Jim.”

Oswald laughed, a hesitant, gentle sound reverberating through the room. It warmed Ed to his very bones. “I’ll hold a gun to your head if you’ll hold one to mine.”

“Deal,” Ed said.

And so, together they waited for the police to arrive, their hands steady on the grips of their guns. Neither fired, which was… well.

It was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr @ batsybatsybats


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conversations are had, things are realized.

Not even a year had passed since his last stay when Ed returned to Arkham once more. The trial had gone much as expected; _not guilty by reason of insanity_ stamped onto official documents same as last time and back in he went, involuntary confinement on the table once again. It had been the first-degree murder charges plus the first-degree attempted murder charge that had done it – they hadn’t been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he’d been behind the lighthouse fire, or the damages to the construction site of the lounge, so he was off the hook there, as he’d expected – but Barbara had sung like a bird when the police had gone knocking on her door; cutting a deal with the cops to avoid punishment was far too easy in Gotham. And the three dead bodies that had served as the Riddler’s messengers #1, #3, and #4 weren’t exactly helping his case, either.

He’d known it was a mistake to trust Barbara and her lackeys the moment he’d stepped into the same room with them to get their help, but the past was the past. He’d be more careful the next time, choose who he allied himself more cautiously. Because there would be a next time, that much he knew. Not with the same people or the same cause, but… the doctors had told him over and over that he was sick, and small part of him believed that. The rest, though… not so much.

He didn’t _feel_ sick, was the thing, and no amount of poking or prodding by the fools at the asylum could change that. Yes, he was feeling fine. No, he didn’t want to talk about his childhood or the reasons why he’d tried to kill his best friend. No, he didn’t want to participate in group therapy, thanks, that’s why he never said anything. No, he didn’t want a drink of water. Yes, _of course_ he took his medication. Yes, he was being honest. Absolutely.

After a month or so of the same thing day in, day out, it started to become too much. The doctors were frustrated by his lack of progress, and Ed realized he didn’t care. Unlike the last time, when he’d tried to be as cooperative as possible under the reign of Hugo Strange to hold on to even a little semblance of power, when he’d played the other inmates like fiddles since they were so easy to read it was almost embarrassing, this time, he did nothing. To keep his mind occupied, he’d tried categorizing his favorite riddles by topic, then by word count, then by complexity, then by how much he liked them.

 _What goes up when rain comes down?_ An umbrella.

 _A man walks out of a house that has four walls all facing north. A bird walks past him. What is it?_ A penguin.

 _If you have me, you want to share me. But if you share me, you lose me. What am I?_ A secret.

 _Break me but I'll continue to work, touch me and I might stay with you forever. What am I?_ A heart.

 _More precious than gold, I cannot be bought, can never be sold, only earned when I am sought. If I am broken I can still be mended, at birth I cannot start or by death be ended. What am I?_ Trust.

 _I have no wings but I fly, I have no teeth but I bite. What am I?_ A bullet.

 _I can only exist between two things and men know me well for the hardship I bring. What am I?_ Distance.

After a while, even that became boring. The walls seemed to get closer together every night while he slept, the inmates more feral and ferocious by the hour. The wails and howls didn’t recede to background noise like they had before; if anything, he became more and more aware of them by the hour.

And he was lonely. That was probably part of what made everything worse this time around. There was no one to talk to, no one who could even begin to understand. And Oswald didn’t visit this time, either. He couldn’t, considering the wider public was convinced they hated each other and with the way things were, Ed wasn’t sure that it wasn’t the truth. He knew how he felt, of course, and he knew that Oswald hadn’t killed him when there had been ample chance and time to do it, but that could’ve meant anything. The Penguin was a patient man, after all. 

Still, there was no way Ed was going to stay in this hellhole for long. He didn’t want to become used to it again. Because this wasn’t the way he wanted to live his life, surrounded by blabbering fools until one of them decided he was fixed and fit to “re-enter society as a valuable citizen”, as they were fond of telling him. There was nothing to fix about him; he wasn’t there to be glued back together and then paraded around as a success story of modern psychiatry.

And, considering how things were going so far, escaping from the asylum seemed a more appealing idea by the moment. Besides, security was surprisingly lax in Arkham now that Strange was no longer in charge. The current director was a ridiculous little man, far more frightened of the inmates than they were of him. It was only a matter of time before he was replaced, so Ed decided to use his time wisely. Plenty of the complex was empty, unused, and the wing he was in was no different. Which meant his escape wasn’t the question of _if_ , but _when_.

Getting out of his cell would be easy enough – the hinges of the door were a tiny bit rusty, if he applied just the right amount of pressure to the right spots, it’d be easy to open. Or he could just pick the lock. Whichever he felt like when the time came, really, but lock picking would make less sound and therefore be easier to get away with.

He’d learned the schedule of the guards and the times they made their rounds (every half hour, he’d figured by counting and marking the minutes that passed between someone walking past his door), so avoiding them to sneak into the unused part of the building would be relatively simple. He’d wait until they’d passed his cell and gone down the hallway, then slip out the door.

The only part he worried about were the patrols around the perimeter of the asylum. He didn’t have a way of estimating when they made their rounds since his window faced the courtyard, so he’d have to improvise once he was out of the building. He had faith in himself, though. And he had faith in the opening in the fence he’d noticed when being transported inside – it was concealed well enough that it was unlikely the staff knew about it but accessible and wide enough that he’d manage to squeeze himself through it. And if all else failed, he’d just climb the fence. How hard could it be?

All in all, he was confident that he’d make it out this time, unlike his first botched escape attempt through the vents – it had been bad luck that the staff was on high alert, an error of timing on his part, born of ignorance and the insistent beckoning of freedom that had enchanted him. A mistake he would not make again.

 

* * *

 

 

For once, one of Ed’s plans went off without a hitch.

The fresh air was heaven on his skin, and the clothes, albeit different from anything he’d usually wear, from the stash he’d hidden in the alleyway two blocks from the asylum were a welcome change after a month of wearing the ludicrous uniform of an Arkham inmate. All in all, Ed was doing good. And the burner phone was useful, too.

After a minute of internal debate, he finally decided to call Oswald, typing the number in almost automatically.

“I got out,” he said as soon as the phone was picked up and a sleepy _hello?_ had sounded from the other side. “Can I stay at the manor until I figure out something else?”

Silence, and then: “…Ed?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Ed said, irritation clouding his voice. “Well, can I? And can you send someone to pick me up?”

Oswald sighed on the other side, probably pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sure, why not. Where are you?”

Ed rattled off an address about five blocks from his current location. A little walk would do him good.

“See you soon, then,” Oswald said and hung up before Ed could say anything else.

 

Ed dumped his discarded jumpsuit and the phone, sim card removed and broken in half, into the dumpster that took up about half the alleyway and started walking, taking in the city him. It was approximately three in the morning, if the nearby church’s ringing bells were to be believed, and the streets were mostly empty save for a few people hurrying along, tense and uncomfortable with being outside at night in Gotham.

He remembered what that had felt like – the anxious beating of his heart, the way every shadow was someone set to hurt him until it wasn’t, the brisk speed of his steps quietly echoing off the sidewalk. He used to be terrified of the dark, up until he figured out much worse things could lurk in the light – he’d been six years old.

So, Ed wasn’t afraid. He was alert, though; it would’ve been naïve not to be, and naivety was what got you killed in Gotham. Unless you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, of course. But everything seemed good enough so far, and a much bigger concern than some small-time crook jumping out at him from an alleyway was being recognized. It wasn’t very likely, of course, given he didn’t look anything like the photos of him that had widely circulated at the time of the trial and it had been a while. And the chances of running into a concerned citizen who didn’t have the common sense to mind their own business were slim, especially in Gotham. Still, he kept an eye out while walking, and listened for the telltale sirens of Arkham. His absence wasn’t likely to be discovered before morning, but it never hurt to be careful.

It took him exactly ten minutes to get to the address he’d given, and the car wasn’t there yet. So, Ed sat down on the steps of the nondescript brownstone and settled in. He only had to kill ten minutes or so, if experience was to be believed. Gabe was the most likely candidate to be sent, and Gabe was quick, unconditionally loyal to Oswald, and the most trustworthy of Oswald’s lackeys by far. Presuming he’d survived whatever detainment Barbara and co. had put him through, yes, but Ed had faith in the man.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited more. Twenty minutes had passed since he’d arrived, and the sky was looking darker by the minute. It was going to rain, and very soon. Being out at half past three in the morning as an escaped mental patient and getting caught in the rain to boot was not exactly Ed’s plan, but he didn’t dare leave just yet, either – forty minutes seemed a reasonable wait time, anyway, even if a bit unusual, considering whoever he was waiting for most likely worked for Oswald. And Oswald wasn’t exactly happy with him.

Five more minutes passed and the rain started coming down just as a black car pulled up around the corner to stop in front of the brownstone, Gabe sitting at the wheel, staring stoically forward. Ed got up and quickly made his way to the car, opening the rear door and getting in. He mumbled a quick greeting, but Gabe gave no indication of hearing him, and the car took off as soon as Ed had closed the door behind him.

Not the warmest reaction, but not a terrible one, either, as Ed remained alive. For the time being, at least. So, Ed bit his tongue and sat still, enduring the tense silence in the car as best as he could.

 

Zsasz was waiting on the front steps of the manor when the car pulled up, his pale skin ghostly white and almost luminous in the night. It reminded Ed of a homing beacon. Of the lighthouse.

He got out of the car when it stopped, slowly, and as soon as he’d closed the door, Gabe sped away.

Fine, then.

Unlike Gabe, who’d just ignored him during the drive save for a few angry huffs when Ed breathed too loud, as if his mere presence was a personal insult, Zsasz… stared, in that odd way of his. Ed approached cautiously, trying not to let his unease show. Zsasz didn’t have a weapon pointed at him just yet, so that was… good? Maybe he was hiding a knife, though?

Half-prepared to get stabbed the moment he reached the stairs, Ed tried to make himself as seem as harmless as possible when approaching. But Zsasz seemed perfectly at ease. Which was a lot more discomforting than Gabe’s quiet animosity had been. No, Zsasz looked almost glad to see him, and Ed had no idea why, which was probably what unnerved him the most.

As soon as he reached hearing distance, Zsasz spoke.

“You look terrible, Nygma,” he said with a barely-concealed grin.

“Nice to see you too, Victor,” Ed replied, suddenly very conscious of the scratchy fabric of the cheap hoodie against his skin. “Why are you even here? Don’t you work for Falcone?”

“I work for whoever I want to work for,” Zsasz answered with a shrug. “And besides, I was asked to be here.”

Ed frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m here to make sure you don’t step out of line. Oswald is an old friend of mine, so if he asks for my help, I’ll come through.” Zsasz smiled at him, a smile that told Ed to try anything funny, anything at all, because he’d be glad to add a tally mark to his collection quicker than Ed could see him coming. A threat, then, and not even a subtle one.

“Naturally,” Ed said sharply. “Can I go inside now, or do you have any other vague threats you’d like to level at me?”

“Nah, I think I’m done,” Zsasz said and stepped aside to let Ed up the stairs and to the door. “He’s waiting in the parlor.”

They navigated the corridors in silence, Ed ahead and Zsasz following close behind, silent as a shadow. When they got to the archway that lead into the parlor, Zsasz stopped him and stepped into the room first.

“He’s here,” he said, then stood next to the doorway to let Ed enter the room.

Everything looked much the same as it had all the previous times he’d been in the house, with dark furnishings, and portraits of the Van Dahls above the fireplace, and dim light cast by the flickering flames and few lamps in the room. Oswald was sitting in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, his bad leg stretched out in front of the fire – warmth made it better, Ed knew, made the constant ache easier to tolerate –, reading something from a report, already dressed for the day.

Which meant he’d gotten up and ready after Ed had called, since Oswald took a notoriously long time getting dressed, debating whether this or that shirt looked better with a given suit, which waistcoat to choose, which tie, which shoes… The whole affair ended up taking an hour, if not more.

It was…

To Ed, the whole scene felt a bit like coming home, much more than entering his old apartment ever had. Ed was disgusted with himself. Home was something safe and sweet, a place to rest and be comforted, not somewhere he had to be cautious, had to tolerate the presences of hostile bodyguards and eerie, bald assassins, and feel anxiety rearing in his chest, making his heart beat much too fast for his liking. Because his heart seemed to be racing, his palms were sweaty, and he wanted to blink suspiciously often–

Then, with a start, Ed realized someone had spoken.

“What?” he said. “I got distracted, sorry. Haven’t had much sleep lately.”

“I said hello,” Oswald said indignantly. “And that a room has been prepared for you at the back of the house. You can sleep there for now.”

Of course he couldn’t have his old bedroom back. The rooms at the back of the house were draftier and smaller than the stately ones at the front – his old room had been pretty much a luxury suite – but then again, Ed couldn’t complain. This was better than Arkham any day of the week, and the fact Oswald had agreed to host him in the first place… very generous, to say the least. Because for now, there wasn’t a safer place to stay under the radar than the home of the man who hated him the most. So, Ed nodded in agreement, a small surrender.

Oswald looked mildly disappointed but pressed on.

“If you’d like, I can have some food be prepared for you. I’m guessing you’re hungry? Arkham has horrid food, as far as I remember.”

Ed fought the urge to smile. “That hasn’t changed. And if it’s not an inconvenience, I’d love some breakfast.”

With a start, Oswald looked toward the east-facing windows. The rain had stopped and there was a sliver of cloudless sky visible, alight with the first inklings of a sunrise. “It _is_ almost time for breakfast, isn’t it? Maybe you should go and get cleaned up, and you can join me for breakfast, then,” he said, glancing at Ed’s sorry excuse of an outfit with distaste.

Ed bristled. “I couldn’t exactly make an escape wearing my usual clothes, could I? And you know how the conditions are in Arkham.”

Oswald shrugged. “You left some clothes here. I had them moved to your new room. Choose from those what you will.”

And that was that.

 

Breakfast an hour later was.

Well.

It was certainly… something.

Olga glared daggers at Ed every time she came out of the kitchen to refill the coffee pot or bring something to the table. That was bad enough, but what made it even worse was the constant sense of dread underlining Ed’s thoughts every time he saw her carrying something hot – he wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had just dumped the entire pot of coffee onto his head, or the massive bowl of porridge onto his lap. She’d never liked him, that much he knew, but she had never been so openly hostile.

And Oswald…

First thing was, Oswald didn’t – or pretended that he didn’t, which seemed more likely – notice the tension in the room. Secondly, he was downing glass after glass of wine like it was water. Now, Ed knew he’d been partial to it before, specifically the red and sweet varieties, but never this early in the day. And never like this.

Ed wanted to say something. But… what was there to say? Oswald was easily irritable at the best of times, and he only got worse after drinking. In the twenty minutes they’d been sitting down, he’d had four full glasses – with a mix of awe and disgust, Ed had kept count. Honestly, his tempo would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so…

Ed was not _worried_.

He was simply… uneasy.

So, he drank his coffee and ate his toast in silence, not wanting to disturb the tentative peace, glancing every now and then at the man at the other end of the table. Oswald was on his fifth glass of wine by then, only putting it down to grab something new to eat, a stack of reports by his right hand for easy access, his eyes focused on the newspaper. Worst of all, Oswald paid no attention to him. Even Olga’s open resentment was better than _this_ , this nothingness, as if Ed wasn’t even in the room, was unworthy of a second glance.

“Anything in the news, then?” Ed finally said, when the silence became intolerable.

Oswald glanced up. “You mean anything about you? Not yet. Other than that… nothing particularly exciting. Besides, all the good stuff never makes the papers anyway.”

Ed smiled. “Fair enough. They never did mention the lighthouse I blew up was one of your biggest stash houses, as far as I know. Then again, I was locked up for two months, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Thank you for that, by the way,” Oswald said. “I lost three million in cash alone, plus an additional one and a half from the firearms.”

“Not enough to make too big of a dent in your finances, I figured, but enough to be noticeable,” Ed told him with a shrug.

“For my legally accounted funds? Heavens, no. For the illegal side, absolutely. Plus the damages of having to rebuild it meant an extra expense in the city budget. Which I did not appreciate at all, by the way,” Oswald told him, a spark of anger in his eyes. “Terrorist attacks are no good for public approval ratings, not to mention that my former chief of staff was the culprit.”

“I… may have been a bit rash in my decisions, I’ll admit. But I don’t regret anything,” Ed said simply, lifting his coffee cup to take another sip.

“Neither do I,” Oswald replied, and finished his wine. “I’d best be off. They’ll want to get a statement from me as soon as your escape is discovered, and I figured it’s better if I’m at city hall rather than home. I don’t want to be holding a press conference and have you suddenly wandering in, do I?”

Ed chuckled. “Rest assured, I have no intention of going back anytime soon. I’ll keep a low profile for now. Anything you want me to do in the meantime?”

“Just stay put and try not to piss Olga off too much. Gabe will be by later to bring you some of your things from storage, so if you have any specific items you want, let me know,” Oswald said, rising from the table.

 

* * *

 

 

The worst part of being a fugitive, Ed decided, were the limitations it set on his movements. Sure, the manor was a far better place to stay than any hideout he could’ve come up with himself, and it was way better than being at Arkham, but even the small library attached to the home office and the gardens and the many rooms couldn’t distract Ed for long.

He was bored, was the problem. It was quiet most of the time, and since his presence there was known only to a few people, Oswald rarely held any of his meetings there, which meant he was away more often than at home, which in turn meant Ed’s only companions were Olga, who seemed to hate him more with every new sunrise and never spoke to him unless she had to, and the old TV he’d fixed up one rainy afternoon.

Staying in the outskirts of the city was a completely new experience to Ed, and one he didn’t necessarily enjoy. Sure, the peace and quiet had been nice for some time, a way to relax and get some rest from the busyness of the city, but after a while, he found himself missing the busy streets and the noise that reminded him he wasn’t completely alone in the world. Here, though, he might as well have been the only man alive.

Being on the run was surprisingly lonely, especially considering that for Ed, “being on the run” currently meant staying still, and staying hidden. They’d looked for him, of course – the first two weeks had been stressful enough, even though he’d reassured himself no one would ever think to look for him here. But after a while, the city had bigger problems to deal with than one Arkham escapee, no matter how dangerous, and the search efforts… didn’t stop, exactly, but were put on the backburner. The posters were still up, and every now and then the evening news mentioned he was still out there and dangerous, but it was nothing as bad as he’d imagined, had secretly hoped for.

He wanted attention. That much he could be honest about. After all, he’d done enough to warrant more than a passing mention every now and then, merely two weeks after his great escape, right? They should’ve been looking for him a lot more urgently than putting up some _Wanted_ posters and making a few public announcements. Frankly, the lack of effort from GCPD and the staff at Arkham was disappointing.

He said as much to Oswald at dinner – they had their evening meal together and rather late, around nine, because Ed refused to eat dinner alone after the first week, and Oswald habitually got home late.

“Considering the whole Court of Owls mess that’s started to come to light lately, it’s hardly surprising, isn’t it? You’re just one person, Ed, no matter how… significant your crimes, and they are a whole organization that’s been pulling Gotham’s strings from the shadows for who knows how long,” Oswald told him, downing his glass of wine in one go. “Did you hear about the illegal cloning debacle?”

“The what?” Ed asked, frowning.

“I’ll take it that’s being kept under wraps, then. It turns out that not only was Strange creating those lovely little monsters of his under Indian Hill for them and resurrecting the dead, but also creating new life. Cloned life, that is,” Oswald said with a shrug.

Ed took a moment to process this. “How many clones are we talking about? And whose?”

Oswald looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “You mean you want to know if… _she_ was one of them? I can’t imagine the thought hasn’t crossed your mind; far weirder things have happened in this city.”

“I… I’ve had plenty of time to mull it over, yes. But I...” Ed trailed off.

“As far as I know for now, I can’t tell you with any degree of certainty. But the timing of her appearance… in retrospect, it does seem suspicious, don’t you think?” Oswald said matter-of-factly.

Ed didn’t reply. He’d had his own doubts in the weeks following Isabella’s death, but this… If it was true after all, and she had been just a tool to be used against him, and nothing genuine at all… Then…

He tried to picture Isabella’s and Kristen’s faces separately, but they kept blurring into one. The similarities were too much to be a coincidence. But that would mean…

Ed rose from the table. “I have to… I have to go, now.”

“Go where?” Oswald said, frowning, his hand reaching for the carafe to refill his wine glass. He was three drinks in, for now.

“Look, I… I have to take some time to process this,” Ed said quietly. “And I don’t think I’m ready to talk about her with you. Or if I’ll ever be. And I don’t want to fight you anymore, not over her.”

“Fair enough,” was the reply.

 

* * *

 

 

Ed tried going to his room, but found the small space stifling and uncomfortable, the walls closing in on him. He tried the library, but the oppressive silence made it feel like a grave, which was no better.

So, he settled on the gardens. It was quiet, but not too quiet – the late spring air crisp but warm enough that crickets were chirping, and the distant noise of the highway two miles north of the house was barely audible in the night. The pathway winding through the massive grounds of the manor was dimly lit by lanterns here and there, but Ed didn’t need their light to know where he was going. He’d mapped the entire property months ago, back when he’d first gotten here, and he knew it like the back of his hand.

Almost on autopilot, his feet carried him to the gazebo overlooking the lake that bordered the property. He sat down on the bench furthest from the water, where he could only see the vague shapes of the lake’s other shore and not too much of the water itself. Ed had developed an aversion to large bodies of water, wary that if he looked down at the water long enough, he’d see Oswald sinking under the surface once again. And instead of the flash of vindication he’d gotten from that once, the thought now filled him with dread.

And the new possibility of Isabella not being everything he’d thought she was meant…

“Having regrets, are we?”

Ed looked up. It was Oswald, but not the right one.

“You again,” he told the phantom.

“Yeah. Seems like you’re on the verge of a breakdown. Again. So here I am,” it told him, shrugging.

“I have the real you back, though,” Ed said. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”

“Are you sure about that?” it said, the vagueness probably intentional.

“He’s...” Ed sighed, unsure of what to say next. “I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

“You’re finally ready to admit it, then? I thought we had figured _that_ out ages ago,” not-Oswald said, looking at him.

It was jarring to see the apparition again; its edges seemed blurry, the eyes not empty or hateful as they had been when it first appeared but filled with… regret, as if knowing something Ed didn’t know. It was unnerving, but at the same time somehow comforting in a way that the real Oswald just wasn’t anymore. Not-Oswald was safer, more predictable, a simplified facsimile of a complex reality.

“You should tell him,” it said simply.

“Tell him what?” Ed asked, pointedly looking at his shoes and pretending he didn’t know not-Oswald was talking about.

“I think you know. And you’ve known for a while,” it told him, softly. “I’m just here to help you admit it to yourself, I guess. I mean, I don’t know why you dreamed me up again but here I am, so. Think. Why did you have to try and tear him and his empire down in the first place, if you were going to do it half-heartedly? You could’ve done far more damage than you did, both before and after you tried to kill him, but you didn’t. Why was it so important to prove you could be without him?”

Ed thought about it.

 _He was my friend and he betrayed me_ was the obvious answer, but… it didn’t feel right. Had he truly betrayed Ed if it was indeed true that Isabella wasn’t who he’d thought she was? It wasn’t right for Oswald to kill her in any scenario, but Ed was beginning to wonder if it may have been for the best, after all.

 _I wanted to destroy him because he hurt me_ wasn’t much better – after all, he hadn’t gone for the jugular. Ed hadn’t harmed Oswald’s most treasured memory, his mother, and hadn’t taken even a fraction of what he owned. The money could be replaced, the reputation rebuilt. And Oswald had done that, had bounced back from the PR nightmare and the hit to his criminal empire and the murder attempts and even the hit to his psyche. How well was anyone’s guess, but he wasn’t a blubbering mess locked away in a padded cell at Arkham yet.

 _He stabbed me in the back and told me he loved me when he didn’t – and couldn’t_ was closer, but not enough, either. Because Oswald had proven him wrong, hadn’t he? Despite everything Ed had put him through, he hadn’t budged.

And Ed had ruined everything.

“I… I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I thought I did but… I guess I was… I may have been wrong.”

Not-Oswald sighed, visibly disappointed. “I suggest you figure it out soon because someone’s coming down the path.”

Ed looked up. The real Oswald was slowly walking down the path towards the gazebo, the metal end of his cane tapping against the cobblestones with every step. His leg was bothering him again, then. He shouldn’t have been outside, if that was the case. The damp country air only made it worse.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone,” Oswald said when he reached the gazebo.

“You’d think I was crazy if I told you who it was,” Ed told him with a sad smile, then scooted over. “Sit down, if you like.”

Oswald obliged.

This was the closest they’d been to each other in months; after the incident, Oswald had pointedly kept his distance. They sat in silence for a few moments, breathing in the night air. Ed’s heart was beating so fast it seemed ready to make its escape from his ribcage any second now.

“Who were you talking to, then?” Oswald asked again, after a while.

“I was talking to you,” Ed replied, quietly. “Let’s just say you’ve been showing up without actually being nearby far more often than I like to admit.”

Oswald blinked a few times. “Oh,” he said eventually. “I thought you were making a phone-call.”

Ed laughed mirthlessly. “Who do I have to call? I’m a wanted man with no friends. And the one friend I _did_ have… Let’s just say I ruined everything a few months back and I’m not even sure why, not anymore.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve been through worse,” Oswald said. “But not by much. I mean, it wasn’t even the first time I almost died in at the docks, nor the first time I had my heart broken. And I’m not sorry for what I did, I’m only sorry for not seeing how much it would hurt you.”

“I may only be given but never bought. Sinners will seek me but saints do not,” Ed recited.

Oswald looked at him blankly for a moment.

“Forgiveness,” Ed said. “You have mine, for whatever it’s worth. And I hope I have yours.”

“Ed, I forgave you back at the warehouse the moment I decided I didn’t want to kill you,” Oswald told him. “Why else would I have allowed you back into my home?”

Ed thought for a moment. “I figured you were just being kind because you pitied me.”

“You know as well as I do that I don’t do kindness,” Oswald replied. “And… you think I pitied you? Why would I _pity_ you?”

“Because you saw what I couldn’t,” Ed told him quietly. “Because I told you that love is sacrifice, that you couldn’t feel it at all, and I lied. I don’t know what love is. I thought I did when I met Kristen, then I thought I did again when I met Isabella, but…”

“Love is a many-splendored thing,” Oswald said, looking out onto the lake. He hummed a few bars, slightly off-key but sweet, pleasantly offsetting the quietness of the night.

Ed smiled. “I love that song.”

“It was one of my mother’s favorites. She used to sing it to me sometimes when I was feeling down,” Oswald said. “ _Your fingers touched my silent heart_ – “

“ _And taught it how to sing_ ,” Ed answered.

“ _Yes, true love’s a many-splendored thing_ ,” they sang together quietly, looking to the lake.

The waters were calm, unbothered by wind, a black abyss to fall into.

And Ed realized he didn’t mind falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr @ batsybatsybats


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presents abound in the final chapter of this fic. You've been warned.

“You can move back into your old bedroom, if you like,” Oswald said next morning over breakfast.

Ed looked up from his plate. He’d been busy trying to cut his French toast into equal, bite-sized pieces; a challenging task considering the amount of strawberries and chocolate spread he’d heaped on top, but he was managing well enough – he hadn’t gotten anything on his clothes and even if the pieces weren’t perfectly uniform, he considered it a small victory anyway.

“Are you sure?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes. You can stay in your current room if you want, but I figured your old room would be more comfortable,” Oswald replied casually, eyes glued to the report he was going over. He seemed to be abstaining from his usual wine today, opting for coffee instead.

The room was a peace offering of sorts, then. Something had changed last night at the gazebo, something small but curiously important that Ed couldn’t figure out. So, he simply nodded.

 

* * *

 

 

“I have something for you,” Ed said later that day, when they were both in the office, Oswald going over some building proposals behind the desk and Ed making himself busy by recategorizing the impressive collection of first-editions that Oswald’s father had left behind. There was good money in those; they’d have to get a professional to appraise them properly, but as far as Ed could tell, the net worth of half the books could extend well into hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.

“What is it?” Oswald said, looking up from the papers.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Ed said, “I’ll be right back.”

He gently set down the signed first-edition copy of _Tender is the Night_ he’d been holding and went back to his room to fetch the modified umbrella he’d been working on. At first, he’d been tinkering with it to use it himself, but the one he’d casually appropriated from the umbrella basket in the foyer was just a little bit too short for comfort, and besides, umbrellas were more Oswald’s theme, anyway.

Going back to the office, he kept the cane behind his back as he approached the desk. “What goes up a chimney down but can’t go down a chimney up?” he asked.

Oswald thought for a few seconds. “An umbrella.”

Ed smiled and handed the contraption over. “I took the liberty of modifying this one to be a little bit more than that.”

Oswald looked it over. “I was wondering where that one went. You said you modified it? What did you do?”

“If you want to shoot someone, you won’t need a gun if you’re carrying that. There’s space for eight rounds in the chamber,” Ed said, gesturing to the handle of the umbrella. “And I reinforced the metal framework so it wouldn’t break if you wanted to use it as a cane or to dispose of someone with it, and I made the fabric splatter-proof so it won’t get filthy. I wanted to add a few more features, like a retractable blade to the tip, but I didn’t have access to the materials I’d need, so that’ll have to come later.”

“It’s… this is incredible, Ed. Thank you,” Oswald said, first looking at the umbrella and then at him, wonder in his eyes.

“Would you like to try it out?” Ed asked. He knew very well that the weapon worked flawlessly, had tested it out several times at the back of the garden where he wouldn’t be heard, but he wanted to show off. After all, he’d created this with only scraps – if he had access to the right materials and tools, he could create so much more.

“Of course. In the garden, though,” Oswald replied. “The weather’s nice today, and I don’t want to accidentally damage anything in the house.”

 

As predicted, the umbrella worked perfectly. What’s more, it looked just as inconspicuous as a regular umbrella should – even though Ed had added a few features to it here and there, it was still usable as a normal umbrella as well as a deadly, multifunctional weapon. So, he was pleased with his work.

And best of all, Oswald loved it.

“This is amazing,” he told Ed for approximately the twentieth time, holding the umbrella out in front of him, admiring it.

Ed smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it? Ed, I love it. It’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten,” Oswald said, grinning.

He looked beautiful in the fading light, leaning against the railing of the gazebo with the lake providing a shimmering, stately backdrop, gently holding his gift as if he couldn’t believe it was real. And he was smiling, genuinely, because of something Ed had done.

Ed’s heart started the erratic thumping again and his lungs felt too small for his chest.

Funny, that. The first time it had happened in Oswald’s presence had been the first time they’d met back at the GCPD headquarters when Ed was still the weird forensics guy and Oswald wouldn’t give him the time of day. And again when he’d saved Oswald’s life and Oswald had been everything but grateful, a small thing of unshed tears and barely-contained fury in borrowed clothes; once more when Oswald had shown up at Arkham the first time Ed was locked up.

And yet again when Oswald had gotten him out of there with a ridiculous certificate to declare that he was sane and cured; once more when Oswald had made him his chief of staff; and again, and again, and again, the moments steadily piling up and becoming blurred until Ed couldn’t help but associate Oswald’s presence and his own rapid heartbeat as coexisting phenomena. 

So, he looked at Oswald, really _looked_ , for the first time in months. At the black hair – it was getting long again, he should get a haircut soon – and at the crisp suit – even at home, Oswald liked to dress up – and at the eyes – cool blue and filled with delight – and at the nose – sharp and thin with a few freckles standing out against the pale skin – and at the mouth – curved into a smile so pleasant that Ed wanted nothing more than to keep it there forever.

And with that thought came a realization that had been looming over him for a long time.

In retrospect, it was almost ridiculous he hadn’t seen it before.

He was in love with Oswald. Had been for a while.

He’d thought it was just admiration at first, the way his heart sped up the first time he saw the other in the flesh. After that, he’d assumed it was simply friendship, a platonic affection that he hadn’t reciprocally experienced before. And then Isabella came along, and any thought for anything other than her had shut down. And then she was gone and he was furious. And then he wasn’t furious anymore but empty. And then all was not lost after all, and he felt hope once again.

This, Oswald being alive, being here and happy with him, _this_ was Ed’s real second chance. If he’d only known then what he knew now, he’d never have set foot into that wine store that fateful evening, would never have met _her_ there. If their meeting had been meant to be, he would’ve met her someplace else, some other time – but not that night. And if he was truly honest with himself – a novel experience, but, surprisingly, an enjoyable one – he would not have reacted to her presence as he had then, with blind marvel.

Because…

Because he wouldn’t have needed her at all, wouldn’t have craved what he’d thought she represented, if that had been the case.

Of course, it was easy to be wise after the fact.

“What are you thinking about?” Oswald asked, breaking the silence.

Ed blurted out, “I cannot be bought, cannot be sold, even if I'm sometimes made of gold. What am I?”

Oswald sighed. “A heart?” he said eventually.

Ed nodded. “I was thinking about mine. And yours too, in a way.”

Oswald’s smile faded. “Look, if this is about what I said before everything, I–“

Ed stood up. “I just have to tell you that I–“

“–I’m not taking back what I said because I mean it even if you don’t feel–“

“–I love you.”

“–the same way.”

A beat, and Oswald’s eyes widened in surprise. “What did you say?”

“I said I think I love you,” Ed replied. The truth was out. There was nothing to be done about that now.

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, Ed,” Oswald said, his voice a little bit shaky.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Ed told him quietly, “and it’s the one thing I’ve managed to figure out. I didn’t… for a long time I didn’t understand what I was feeling, especially after… _her_ , because for a while I thought I hated you, and I suppose I did, but it didn’t change what was already there, so. I’m not sure about a lot of things in my life, but this is one I’m certain about.”

Oswald didn’t say anything for a while, looking at something past Ed entirely. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he started laughing.

Ed balked. “Oswald, why are you… why are you laughing? Are you laughing at me?”

Oswald wheezed. “No, no, it’s just… I’ve never met anyone who has as terrible timing as you do, Ed.”

Ed smiled. “At least I got there before we’re both old and gray. Because we still have time to make something of it, I think. If you want to, after everything that’s happened, that is.”

“You know, I’ve had time to think, too. And… And I think I do.”

And that was already more than Ed could’ve ever hoped for.

 

* * *

 

Ed went back to Arkham.

It wasn’t easy, by no means. But it had to be done. Because he wanted to be able to leave the manor, to see the city and how it had changed in the months he’d been gone, and most of all, he wanted to go out in public with Oswald. With the one he loved.

It was strange to admit that, to finally let into the light a truth he’d known, deep down, for over a year but had never dared to accept, much less admit to. And it felt good. Because he’d never felt like this before – with Kristen it had been making a complete fool of himself because of attraction and curiosity, and being unable to see that no matter how much he wanted her, she wouldn’t understand him, not the way he wanted and needed her to. With Isabella, it had been chasing a ghost, a faint memory of something he’d thought had been missing, meeting someone who accepted him and never questioned, never challenged him to be smarter, to be _more_ , with a personality so like his own that it was unsettling at times.

And now… now he finally understood what he hadn’t been able to comprehend before. That being in love didn’t mean changing yourself for the sake of the other or wanting them to change for your own. That if falling in love was beyond control, a wild rush of neurochemicals and emotion, then remaining in love after the initial buzz faded was a choice. And both Ed and Oswald had made theirs.

So, back to Arkham Ed went.

Handing himself in was easy enough: he’d been dropped off at the door of the GCPD, practically gift-wrapped. And he’d been able to simply saunter in and go to the civilian administrator’s desk and say he was there to hand himself in. The look on the man’s face had been priceless.

And he’d gone quietly, smiling all the while. Because staying at Arkham wasn’t to be for long before he was out once more, legally this time. After all, procuring sanity certificates was ridiculously easy in Gotham. He’d have to stay put for a few weeks or a month at most, just for show, before he could leave with his head held high. The best part, of course, and the only reason he’d agreed to do it in the first place, was that he wouldn’t have to do it alone.

That alone was enough to keep Ed smiling the whole way to Arkham, handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car driven by two new recruits he’d never seen before. They were both young, probably fresh out of the academy, uncomfortable in his presence, especially the one behind the wheel who looked like he might start crying any second. It made Ed smile even wider. One just couldn’t get this kind of police service in Gotham anymore, what with how the first year on the force saw a recruit either dead, quitting, or adjusting into what they saw as the harsh skin of a GCPD officer.

None of them were ever as tough as they thought they were, of course, but it gave them the same sense of superiority and invulnerability that had sent Officer Dougherty into his grave – the disgusting excuse of a man had thought himself _better_ , _untouchable_ , a misconception Ed was eventually glad to have proven wrong.

It would be a shame if either of those two were to follow the same path, and the fear and disgust reflecting in the driver’s eyes every time he glanced into the rearview mirror was enough for Ed to see that the young man was of the same type. A coward who liked to pretend he was brave. As much as he wanted to have some fun with the rookies, Ed kept quiet. Arkham bureaucracy was flexible enough that if he caused any trouble, he’d be thrown in solitary for being a problem no one wanted to deal with. Which would mean no time in the communal spaces, and worst of all, no visitation rights. And he had no desire to be isolated any more than was necessary.

The observation and assimilation period would be bad enough, as would be having to explain where he’d gone and where he’d been, but it would be endurable. Because this time, he had something to look forward to, some semblance of a future that he couldn’t wait to get to.

 

* * *

 

 

Being back was.

Well.

Nothing like he’d expected.

Not even in a bad way; the idiot director was, surprisingly, still holding on to his position. And while security detail had been revised and updated, especially considering the task of securely housing Jerome Valeska had proven to be more difficult than anticipated – Ed had heard whispers of more than one doctor quitting their job immediately after their first session with him –, the added guards and surveillance were of no concern to him.

If anything, he was pleased, because even if he did need to escape on his own for whatever reason (an unlikely event, but it never hurt to be prepared), they presented simply a new level of difficulty in the puzzle that was Arkham. By now, his third time staying there, he knew the complex inside out. So, no, he wasn’t worried at all. He had other things to occupy his mind.

More specifically, planning what to do to celebrate once he was released again. A bank robbery seemed… pedestrian and overdone. It was the shtick of low-brow criminals like the original Red Hood gang had been, and frankly, he and Oswald were above that.

An art heist? He’d already done one, so it wasn’t particularly exciting.

The idea of blowing up more buildings bored him.

Creating another hostage situation? Complicated and with too many variables; he’d been lucky to succeed with his first and wasn’t too keen to try again anytime soon.

Covering the GCPD Homicide Division’s building in green paint? Juvenile, but… amusing. Ed set that one aside for later.

Breaking into city hall and stealing the marriage licenses of couples with alliterative names? Another amusing one, but perhaps a bit impractical. Sorting through the paperwork would take too much time considering the small payoff.

Eventually he settled on asking Oswald what he wanted to do when he came to visit, a week and two days after Ed’s return, not by any virtue of being allowed to, exactly, but mostly because of a few thinly veiled threats and a few well-placed bribes. Not that Ed was complaining, of course.

“Can’t we just… rest first before committing any major crimes? There’s this great new place that’s scheduled to open up that I’d like you to see,” was the answer he got.

Not exactly what he’d hoped for, but… if it made Oswald happy, then sure. So, Ed nodded his agreement.

Being back at the visitor’s hall in the asylum was weird, to say the least. Everything was still the same, the same sickly bluish light filtering through the barred windows, the same rickety chairs and tables, the same sour-faced guards half-heartedly keeping an eye on the people confined within – not that there ever were many, as most Gothamites who had friends or family in Arkham refused to enter the complex, whether out of superstition, fear of not being let out again, or something else entirely, was anyone’s guess.

But Oswald didn’t seem afraid, nor even uneasy. Sure, his smiles were more hesitant than they had been back at the manor, but he wasn’t frowning, either. To Ed, the air seemed easier to breathe when he was around, the walls of Arkham surrounding them less oppressive, somehow. Oswald’s presence alone was a pleasant reminder that there was life outside of Arkham, a life that was waiting for Ed to get out and claim it.

He said something in a similar vein to Oswald and got a smile in return. 

“How are _you_ doing, though?” Ed said. “There’s not much happening here and honestly, I’m dying to hear about the outside world. No one ever says anything about that here; it’s almost as if we exist outside of it.”

Oswald shrugged. “Not much has happened on my side, either. The mayoral duties remain boring as ever and the city council is starting to get ideas again, so they’re going to have to be dealt with. On the… more sensitive side of things, I’ve got a few people working on getting together enough forces to deal with Barbara and hers once and for all. I feel like it’s time, don’t you? She’s been getting on my nerves more and more.”

“Best to deal with her before she becomes a real problem, I think,” Ed said nonchalantly, keeping his expression neutral as if talking about the weather. A guard was keeping her eye on them, looking a little too interested.

“She became a real problem as soon as she targeted the families, I think. But it’s nothing that can’t be handled,” Oswald said just as blankly, glancing at the guard. “Which reminds me – I got you a present.”

Ed smiled. “Another Chinese puzzle box?”

Oswald chuckled. “Not exactly, but close enough.”

“Let’s see it, then.”

Oswald reached into the bag he’d brought with him and retrieved a small, gift-wrapped box. As he handed the gift over, their fingers touched, briefly, on the underside of the box, out of the line of sight of the guards and the cameras. That was as much physical contact as they were going to get, probably, and Ed appreciated it like a man in a desert appreciates a drink of water.

He unwrapped the box with a few nimble movements and opened it. Inside was a dodecahedron puzzle box, with green and purple tiles.

“I’m guessing you’ve seen one before, so I won’t bother explaining the mechanics of it to you. Just… try not to solve this one immediately, okay? I know you probably can but I’d like to think I’ve given you at least something of a challenge,” Oswald said, smiling as Ed turned the puzzle box over in his hands, studying the sides. Ed had already figured out two possible configurations and was working on a third, but he could wait to open it, sure.

“Is there anything inside?” he asked.

“I guess you’ll have to tell me next time I can visit,” Oswald replied.

 

As soon as Ed was back in his cell, he opened the puzzle box. In it, there was a small, carefully folded letter, along with a small, purple brocade pocket square which Ed tucked away under his pillow.

The letter was brief, almost formal in its curtness. Which made sense, considering Oswald’s handwriting and the size of the compartment inside the puzzle box – even with creative folding, the compartment wouldn’t fit anything larger than half a stationary-sized sheet of paper together with the pocket square. Ed didn’t mind: as soon as he was done reading, he put it back, closed the puzzle box, and scrambled its tiles so the message would be kept safely locked away from prying eyes. It was no big secret the staff went through the inmates’ belongings regularly while they were in the recreational areas or in therapy sessions, and Ed had already memorized the contents of the letter.

A few simple words of reassurance, a question, and at the very end, a riddle.

_What do you get if you put a radio in a refrigerator?_

Cool music.

Ed laughed, the sound reverberating off the walls of his cell to join the evening chorus of voices that filled the halls of Arkham. He hummed to himself as he used the green crayon he’d pinched from the rec room down the hall to draw small question marks on the windowsill. Only a little while to go.

 

* * *

 

 

Oswald had managed to come visit once more – much the same as the last time, but without a present other than some mint chocolate chip cookies, Ed’s favorite – before Ed was officially released. Not by any virtue of an actual recovery, of course, not that he had anything to be recovering from, as far as he was concerned.

He got to keep the puzzle box – and its contents, which no one else knew about, but still –, and he finally got his green suit back, along with the other possessions he’d handed over when he was first admitted. They weren’t much, but having his keys and his watch back was nice.

And best of all, he got to walk out of the gates of Arkham Asylum, a free man once more.

The sight of the city sprawling around the asylum grounds was comforting by itself, but the sight of Oswald waiting for him by the car, dressed to the nines with the umbrella Ed had given to him tucked under his arm, looking at his phone with a small frown creasing his brows… Seeing him again outside of Arkham, in broad daylight, was like learning to breathe again. Ed couldn’t believe his luck. And if he walked a bit quicker than normal...

He was sure the lone guard in the gatehouse wasn’t paying too much attention.

Oswald looked up from his phone as Ed approached hearing distance and, as he saw who it was, his mouth curved into a brilliant smile. He set the umbrella on the hood of the car, carefully, and made his way towards Ed to meet him halfway.

They crashed together rather awkwardly, slightly off-balance but quickly finding their footing again and holding onto each other.

“Hi,” Ed said once he managed to form a coherent thought again.

Oswald smiled against his shoulder. “Hi.”

“I think maybe we should disentangle for now. People are watching,” Ed said, even though he didn’t actually mean it. He didn’t care about people’s prying eyes, or the gossip that was sure to spread once word got out about their little reunion – but Oswald was the mayor, and Ed was the man who’d tried to kill him. An uncomfortable truth, yes, but one he had to keep in mind.

Oswald responded by pulling back. The air felt colder immediately.

“I see you solved the puzzle box,” he told Ed, eyeing the pocket square adorning Ed’s suit.

“Did you honestly expect that I wouldn’t?”

“I wouldn’t have gotten it for you in the first place if I didn’t think you could.”

Ed shrugged. “Just making sure.”

“There’s a matching tie in the glove compartment,” Oswald said. “Do you want to drive, or shall I?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Take the next left,” Oswald said from the passenger seat.

They were driving right into the heart of Diamond District, which wasn’t all that surprising – it was no secret that Oswald’s tastes tended towards the more expensive, and if you wanted luxury in Gotham, the Diamond District was the place to go.

No, what was surprising was that Ed was sure he knew where they were headed.

So, he obeyed, but couldn’t help but voice his suspicions.

“And do I take the next right after that? And make a left two blocks later?” he asked, and Oswald smiled.

“I knew you’d figure it out before we got there. And yes, please do.”

Ed did, and they found themselves on the familiar street that housed the property development Oswald had bought last year. Only… only the smoldering wreck of a building Ed had turned it into wasn’t there.

In its stead, a bright white structure filled the lot, the sparse sunlight glinting off its Art Deco-influenced façade. It was beautiful, seamlessly blending with the rest of the historic side of Diamond District, but distinct enough to set it apart from the other businesses and offices that lined the street it was on.

“Stop here,” Oswald said when they pulled up in front of it.

They got out of the car, Oswald taking some time to maneuver himself to avoid putting too much weight on his bad leg; Ed knew better than to offer any help.

Standing side by side in front of the structure, they both took it in together. Up close, the building was even more impressive than it had been from afar – it was by no means a skyscraper, reaching only five full floors aboveground, but something about it that Ed couldn’t put his finger on made it seem larger, somehow. The very bricks seemed to emanate an order for the viewer’s attention.

“What do you think?” Oswald said after a minute of silence.

“It’s… it’s beautiful,” Ed replied. “How did you get it done up so fast?”

“Money makes the world go around, as you well know. After your little… stunt, I had more motivation than ever to get it up and running as soon as possible, just to spite you. And then, after a while…” Oswald paused. “After a while I realized I wanted it to be done so I could show it to you, to… to prove that we can rebuild. After all, if I could rebuild _this_ , then maybe…”

“Maybe we had a chance, too,” Ed finished.

Oswald smiled. “Exactly. Do you want to see the inside, too?”

Ed replied by taking Oswald’s free hand and walking towards the massive front door leading into the building.

 

The doors opened to reveal a large two-story lobby, with a massive crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling to illuminate the marble tile floor below, contrasting with the dark blue paneling with silver details that covered the walls. The open space was peppered with massive columns supporting the walkways, connecting to the landing, that overlooked the lobby. A wide staircase lead to the second floor of the building, cut off with a navy-blue rope.

“I haven’t approved all the plans for the furnishings just yet, so it’s still mostly empty, but the original idea was to have a restaurant area downstairs and a lounge upstairs, with most of the back rooms reserved for the more… sensitive types of business, as well as an executive suite,” Oswald said, looking around the lobby before pointing to the intricate double doors on either side of the grand staircase. “The entrances for the restaurant are over there. Do you want to see the upstairs before or after we go?”

“Before, if you don’t mind,” Ed replied, and Oswald led him to elevator doors concealed within the paneling.

“I figured I wouldn’t want to tread up and down the stairs all the time, what with…” Oswald trailed off, vaguely gesturing with the umbrella towards his bad leg. “I had them put in elevators here and there, mostly for my own use and for the staff.”

“I was going to suggest putting an elevator somewhere in here. I’m glad you’d already thought of it,” Ed said.

The elevator took them to the second floor, opening onto the walkway. The chandelier looked even more impressive from there, the crystals like a cluster of icicles illuminated from within.

The area set aside for the lounge was darker, with the blue overweighing the white details, all dark floors and low lighting, but by no means any less impressive. For now, it was a bit empty, but Ed could see where the stage was already built, so he could guess where the bar would go, where the booths and the tables would be set. And Oswald knew that, most likely, but showed him anyway.

The other rooms were unfinished, so back downstairs they went.

“Have you decided on a name for it yet?” Ed asked when they were back in the lobby and Oswald had finished explaining what he wanted done with the empty rooms behind the kitchens.

“Not yet, no. I thought maybe you could help me with that,” Oswald replied. “Any ideas?”

Ed thought for a moment. “Lighter than what I am made of, more of me is hidden than is seen. I am the bane of the mariner, a tooth within the sea.”

Oswald frowned. “And by that you mean…”

“The answer is ‘an iceberg’. I was thinking about what the most striking feature of this building was, and to me, it’s the chandelier–” Ed gestured to the delicate contraption of silver and crystal hanging above their heads. ”To me, it looks like an iceberg. Hence my suggestion.”

Oswald responded by kissing him, which was… Well. Perfectly unexpected and unexpectedly perfect.

When they finally pulled apart, Ed said, “I’ll take it you like it, then?”

“It’s perfect,” Oswald replied, the soft radiance of the chandelier shimmering on his face like heavenly light.

So, Ed leaned in for another kiss.

And that was that.

 

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far, first of all, thank you so much! Feedback is very much appreciated!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @ batsybatsybats

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ batsybatsybats


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